Is Direct Mail Dead? 5 Direct Mail Myths Debunked

With continued advances in digital marketing automation, you might believe the myth that direct mail is dead. However, the technology making email marketing, search and social media advertising smarter is enhancing direct mail, too. It’s called direct mail automation. Direct mail is alive and well. In fact, it’s doing better than email when it comes to response rates.Now, let’s take a look at 5 more direct mail myths.

1. Millennials aren’t into direct mail.

Those crazy kids. Always glued to their phones, right? Well, yes, that is right. That part is not a myth. However, numerous studies show millennials not only engage with direct mail, but they trust print more than digital ads. This generation may seem addicted to the Internet, but the numbers show millennials have digital fatigue.

Just how much do millennials appreciate “snail mail?” A Gallup Poll shows that 95% of people ages 18 to 29 have positive feelings regarding personal mail.

It should be no surprise that those raised on the Internet are best able to tune out online ads. And because young adults are not bombarded with direct mail, they remain interested in it. Pro tip: Build a millennial-friendly direct mail campaign by taking a multi-channel approach. Use your direct mail postcards to drive traffic to a video or to generate user-created content on your social media pages.

2. Direct mail has low response rates.

Direct mail’s response rate has decreased over the past decade, but it still beats digital efforts by a landslide. According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), direct mail garners a 4.4 percent response rate compared to email’s .12 percent.

Direct mail gets response rates 10 to 30 times higher than digital channels, according to the DMA.

Why does a print medium continue to outperform digital channels in the age of the Internet? The DMA points to consumers suffering from email overload vs. enjoying the tangible, emotional, and urgent appeal of physical mail.Pro tip: Your direct mailers will be most powerful when combined with data-driven online campaigns. Use Inkit’s direct mail software with a CRM or marketing automation platform like Drip or HubSpot to drop postcard mailers right into your digital campaigns. Learn more here.

3. Direct mail is labor intensive and expensive.

So now you know direct mail gets way better response rates than email, but isn’t email still going to achieve a better ROI? Not if you do direct mail well.Sending a marketing postcard used to be very labor intensive and expensive. You would have to coordinate with a designer and a printer, and possibly meet a minimum batch size in the hundreds if not thousands of addresses. And with an over-sized batch, you’d surely waste money sending postcards to people outside of your target market.Today, you don’t have to jump through all these hoops to launch a direct mail campaign. You can send direct mail as easily as you send email. With Inkit’s direct mail software, you can quickly create, print and automate targeted direct mail campaigns—saving you time and money. Use one of our templates or create your own design with our drag and drop dashboard. Then, place the mailer into your automated campaign. We work with printers nationwide, enabling you to send 5 or 5,000 postcards at a time. We call it direct mail automation: all of the ease of email marketing with the power of direct mail. Click here to try it out for free.

4. Direct mail can’t be personalized.

Do you think direct mail personalization is limited to the pricing variation you see in cable ads from zip code to zip code? Not anymore.You can target and personalize direct mailers just as you do with email, using variable, dynamic data to create highly effective marketing messages.Pro tip: Insert personalized direct mail into an existing email campaign when you are struggling with open rates or click-through rates. (The vast majority of people not only open their mail right away, but they also sort through it).

5. Direct mail can’t be tracked easily.

It can and it should.Direct mail is testable and measurable, especially when you integrate direct mail with digital campaigns. Using a direct mail platform like Inkit alongside your marketing automation platform allows you to report and act on response rates, ROI and more. You can even run A/B tests to compare everything from headlines to CTAs to postcard designs.

Learn more about how to put serious data behind your direct mail automation campaigns here.Do not let direct mail myths keep you from benefiting from one of the most effective marketing channels around. Direct mail is tried, true and better than ever in the Digital Age.